Freedom Incorporated, Peter Tylee [literature books to read TXT] 📗

move before then. He’d helped her establish the accounts in such a way that it would be easy for him to make the money disappear. And nobody’ll be the wiser. He intended to tell Michele the UniForce accountants had discovered their money, assumed somebody had made an innocent error, and absorbed it into the company’s coffer. Then he’d warn her to keep her mouth shut. If she posed even the slightest threat, he’d arrange for her to have an accident. But for now, she was useful: they’d set everything up from her computer so Michele would take the rap if anybody noticed their creative accounting. They’d had to fiddle with the numbers to make it work, but Esteban had made it possible with his thoroughly diabolical idea of selling exclusive lists twice. But it hadn’t stopped there. They’d oversold all the lists, even the amateur ones. “Well, that’s good,” he finally said.

Michele had plans of her own. She wasn’t quite as stupid as Esteban assumed; she knew he’d never move away with her. Besides, she liked working for UniForce. She liked the mural on the glass, the promotional cube, and the large office. And the sex, her mind added as an afterthought. There was a guy down in marketing, Luke, who was really in love with her. She beamed another smile at the idea, another grin which Esteban took for vacant thoughts. Michele was still working on Luke; she nearly had the courage to tell him about the money. She wanted to tell him the stash could all be theirs if they just eliminated Esteban Garcia Valdez.

“How about the top level lists?” Esteban asked pointedly, directing her obviously wandering attention back to what he really wanted to know. The money was incidental; he had plenty of money and little need for more. More is nice… But it wasn’t the reason for hatching this particular scheme.

“What about them? They’re selling just as well as the others…”

“I mean,” he said, doubting whether someone of Michele’s inferior mental attributes would twig to his true interest, “Dan Sutherland and the Raven. Are they still the only two who’ve bought double-sold exclusives?”

She nodded mutely.

“Then they’re the only ones who’re in a position to see what we’ve done. The other top hunters are still working on private lists and losers share theirs anyway.” He saw that she didn’t understand and it frustrated him that he had to explain so much. “Well have they complained? How are they going? They’re our pilot group. If they don’t show signs of misbehaviour then we can start double-selling the others.” Esteban didn’t intend to double-sell exclusive lists to anyone except Sutherland and the Raven, but he wasn’t about to share that information with Michele. He’d meticulously chosen a list-partner for Sutherland. And since the Raven had the most ruthless record, he’d deliberately stitched them together. Now he was wondering how long it would take before they cracked, and who would crack first.

“No, they haven’t complained. Oh… do you think they will?”

Esteban couldn’t help rolling his eyes. “Eventually they’re going to say something. They’re paying for exclusive lists and surely they’ll notice we’re not giving them what they’ve paid for.”

“But won’t that blow the whistle?”

Esteban was trying to mask his keen interest in Dan Sutherland. “That’s what we’ve got to find out. Don’t worry about it; I can take care of them if they make any trouble. Okay?”

She nodded, wishing he’d never talked her into doing something so risky. It’d be smarter to leave the exclusive lists alone. Though she had to admit she was enjoying the praise Jackie lavished on her for transforming the bounty-hunting branch into UniForce’s strongest growth sector. It made her feel useful and she prized that more than anything. Finally she had something she was good at.

Esteban wished he had a cigar and cursed the sensitivity of the smoke detectors. UniForce had dotted sprinklers across the otherwise white ceiling and he knew from experience that a cigar would set them off.

He had long-term plans for Dan Sutherland’s demise. But they weren’t finalised yet, there was ample room for a poetic twist to complement his demonic scheme.

*

Thursday, September 16, 2066

19:54 Albury, Australia

Dan yanked on the handbrake and unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Why are we stopping here?” Jen didn’t entirely trust him yet.

“My parents place is about five kilometres from here, just over that hill.” He pointed into the darkness. “I don’t want to park a stolen car in their driveway.”

“Oh yeah.” Jen hadn’t thought of that.

“It won’t take us long,” Dan said while reaching for his coat that he’d tossed on the back seat. It was a warm September evening so he folded it across his arm. “Are you cold?”

Jen wasn’t wearing much, she’d portaled from Tweed Heads directly into the climate controlled mall, never giving much consideration to what the weather might be like in the lower half of Australia. A warm sirocco-like breeze crawled across her flesh. “No, I’m fine.”

“Let’s go then.” Dan was nervous about seeing his parents again. He hadn’t even phoned them for six months and now he was about to knock on their door with a cantankerous ex-target in tow.

Jen stumbled after him, uncomfortable with her limited choices. She’d never been to Albury before and had no clue where to find the centre of town. Dan had painstakingly driven around the bubble of activity on the main street, which dissected the highway, preferring to avoid the prying pole-mounted cameras designed to make the streets safer. As far as Jen could tell, they were in the bush - a eucalyptus haze hung thick in the air and made breathing difficult for her sensitive lungs.

A twig snapped under Dan’s heavy feet, causing fear to ping through Jen’s body. Her eyes were wide but she could see little the gloom. I’m following a man I don’t trust into the bush. It reminded her of a horror movie she’d seen in a recent horror-binge. She stayed a dozen metres behind him, his silhouette barely visible against a backdrop of twisted scarecrow branches and sparse leaves. At the first sign of danger, she was ready to turn and sprint for the car. Not that I can start it. It was another disturbing thought to add to the growing list.

There was a rustling of leaves to Jen’s right. It came from somewhere in the undergrowth and she decided that Dan might not be the scariest thing in the bush. Common sense told her that nothing was dangerous in Australia. Other than snakes and spiders. But fear had firmly settled in and she was beginning to lose her nerve.

Snap out of it! She mentally slapped herself. He saved my life today. If he wanted me dead, he would’ve let the Raven do it. Besides, he can’t be all that bad, he caught my grandfather’s killer. It was only after they’d been walking for another ten minutes that Jen realised she had no way of knowing whether the Raven was shooting at her… or at him. And what proof did she have that this man was really Daniel Sutherland? He could be anyone.

She stopped, confused.

Dan heard. “What’s wrong?”

“You… how do I… what proof… It’s difficult to trust you. You are, after all, leading me into the bush.”

Dan mentally groaned and thought, I thought we’d passed all this? “You know, you’re right. You don’t have to trust me. In fact,” he snorted a laugh, which sent shivers dancing the length of Jen’s spine, “you can stay here if you want. I’m going to my parent’s house. We’re getting close. We’ll reach a road if you’d care to follow me for another 50 metres. And, unless I’m mistaken, there’s also a streetlight or two.” He recommenced trudging into the gloom and left Jen to whatever decision she was going to make.

She listened to him leave and wished she were back in her apartment. She doubted she could blunder her way to town in the dark, so unless she followed Dan she’d have to stay in the bush until dawn. “Shit!” she said through clenched teeth and, reluctantly, hurried to catch up.

True to his word, they emerged from the trees and Jen’s boots cheerfully gripped the bitumen.

“You see,” Dan said, pointing to a streetlight on the top of a rise. “There’s a sign under that light, you can’t quite read it from here, but it says Thurgoona Park. We go left there and we’re back in civilization.”

Jen, comforted, quickened her pace to walk next to him. In times past the road would have buzzed with cars, all with too much engine under the hood and not enough brain behind the wheel. But since PortaNet had inundated society with instantaneous transportation, the Roads and Traffic Authority had left the roads for the weather.

The temperature was dropping and Jen vigorously rubbed her bare arms, trying to keep them warm.

“You want this?” Dan offered his coat.

She nodded and said, “Thanks,” then gratefully wrapped it around her body, feeling as if she was swimming in the oversized garment.

A few minutes later, they turned onto Bennett Road and Dan jerked his head at a solid brick house. “That’s it.”

Jen used her imagination to picture the brown tiled roof and mottled bricks with beige guttering and trims. The twinkling starlight made it difficult to determine the precise colours, but she could see it had once been a majestic home. And big. Although it was narrow at the front, it stretched a long way towards the rear of the sizable block; she saw it as she crunched across the gravel driveway. Towering pines lined three sides of the property, providing privacy from the street, and Jen could smell flowers - thousands of them. The sweet perfume reminded her of a florist. And the flower garden’s intense array of orange and crimson practically glowed in the dark.

Automatic lights illuminated the veranda in a sudden flood, luring moths and making Jen wince from the stab of pain on her retinas. She slapped at a sting on her neck, cursed the mosquito she’d smeared across her palm, and then scratched at the lump that was already emerging from her irritated skin.

Dan rang the doorbell. Gone were the days he could waltz on in. Jen thought she could hear a muted argument from within as Dan’s parents quibbled about who’d get the door. Eventually it cracked open and a man in his sixties stuck his nose out. He recognised his son immediately and swung the door wide. “Dan!”

“Hi pop,” Dan said, looking embarrassed when his father shakily descended the steps and clasped him in a bear hug that belied the older man’s age.

“Dan! Hey Marie, it’s Dan!” He heartily slapped his son’s back before holding him at arm’s length and gauging his health, and then hugged him a second time.

Jen thought she saw a thickening to the sheen in the man’s eyes.

A moment later, a buxom woman bounded to the door and completed the family reunion by bursting into a joyful bout of sniffles. “Come here,” she ordered tearfully.

Dan dutifully ascended the steps and embraced his mother, presenting her with a kiss on the cheek that every good son should bestow on his mother after such a long time apart. He eventually extricated himself for long enough to conduct proper introductions. “Mum, Dad, this is Jennifer Cameron.”

“Hello Mr and Mrs Sutherland,” Jen said, holding out a hand for each of them to shake. “Please just call me Jen.”

“Only if you’ll call me George,” Mr Sutherland replied, eyeing her approvingly. He winked and, rather than making her feel uncomfortable, it helped put her at ease. Because at that point, Jen finally accepted that Dan wasn’t going to dismember her in a grisly murder and then dump